Note to editors: To arrange interviews with the student filmographers and/or their faculty advisors, or to request student photos, contact Cal State L.A.’s Public Affairs Office at 323-343-3050 or paffairs@calstatela.edu.

And the Rosebud Award goes to …‘Ups and Downs’ from Cal State L.A.

Student films ‘Jean,’ ‘The Island Universes’ also garner

high honors at CSU Media Arts Festival

Los Angeles, CA – For their depiction of an animated soul rising above mundane conformity in their film ‘Ups and Downs,’ two Cal State L.A. students received a Rosebud Award, one of the top honors at the 2008 CSU Media Arts Festival, held recently at CSU Channel Islands in Camarillo, CA. Two other Cal State L.A. films also received honors—in the experimental and animation categories.

The annual festival showcases exceptional student film and video projects from throughout the CSU system’s 23 campuses. A panel of industry experts judged 175 entries and chose 35 finalists for the award competition within nine categories: animation, documentary, experimental, interactive, music video, narrative, television, feature screenplay, and short screenplay.

By art majors Ian Lollar of San Dimas and Tyler Andersen of Diamond Bar, it presents (in a movie trailer) an alternate future where efficiency reigns supreme. The nearly two-minute film took roughly three months to produce (amid other academic priorities). Posted on YouTube Dec. 13, 2007, it had been viewed more than 400 times by Nov. 20, 2008. It ends with the question: “Life is about rules. I mean…. What’s the worst that could happen?” The students received a $500 cash prize; $250 was also awarded to the Art Department at Cal State L.A. Lollar and Andersen were advised by Art Professor Tony Longson.

Directed by graduate art student Dal Lim Park of Los Angeles, it features an explanation of Kant’s hypothesis of galaxies. More than a dozen other students contributed to the project, including lead animator Javier Zumacta.

The film is a product of Cal State L.A.’s Sci-Vi Lab (http://sci-vi.calstatela.edu). Formally called the Integrated Training Pipeline for Scientific Visualization and supported by the National Science Foundation, the lab is a collaboration between Cal State L.A. and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

CSU Summer Arts established the Media Arts Festival in 1990 to provide CSU students an opportunity to present their works for critical review. The festival also helps students transition from producing films, videos, and interactive media in university classes to working in related industries.

Working for California since 1947: The 175-acre hilltop campus of California State University, Los Angeles is at the heart of a major metropolitan city, just five miles from Los Angeles’ civic and cultural center. More than 20,000 students and 205,000 alumni—with a wide variety of interests, ages and backgrounds—reflect the city’s dynamic mix of populations. Six colleges offer nationally recognized science, arts, business, criminal justice, engineering, nursing, education and humanities programs, among others, led by an award-winning faculty. Cal State L.A. is home to the critically-acclaimed Luckman Jazz Orchestra and to a unique university center for gifted students as young as 12. Programs that provide exciting enrichment opportunities to students and community include an NEH- and Rockefeller-supported humanities center; a NASA-funded center for space research; and a growing forensic science program, housed in the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center. www.calstatela.edu